---
title: The 2016 Broadcast — 'I Wouldn't Answer the Phone'
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/morris-2016-shunning-broadcast/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/morris-2016-shunning-broadcast.md
type: argument
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
topics: [Practice, Authority]
challenges: [Salvation Requires Works and Organisation Membership, Disfellowshipped Members Must Be Completely Shunned]
verses: [1 Timothy 5:8, Luke 15:4, Matthew 7:16, 1 Corinthians 13:7, 1 Corinthians 5:11, 2 Thessalonians 3:14]
strength: Strong
tone: Good
attribution: JW Broadcasting, monthly programme May 2016, featuring Anthony Morris III (then Governing Body member) discussing contact with disfellowshipped family members; Watchtower April 15 2012 pp. 11-12; Watchtower January 15 2013 pp. 15-16; internal stress-test debate on moral-fruit framing.
added: '2026-04-08'
last_reviewed: '2026-04-08'
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# The 2016 Broadcast — 'I Wouldn't Answer the Phone'

*When Governing Body instruction is explicit, the fruit test is not speculative*

## Doorstep Question

> "In a 2016 JW broadcast, a Governing Body member affirmed that a mother should not answer the phone if her disfellowshipped daughter called. Is that the kind of family policy the Bible teaches — or the kind it warns about in 1 Timothy 5:8?"

## JW Claim

The Watchtower teaches that contact with a disfellowshipped family member
should be limited to "necessary family matters" only. On the May 2016 monthly
JW Broadcasting programme, then-Governing Body member Anthony Morris III
discussed a scenario in which a disfellowshipped adult daughter phones her
mother; the broadcast affirmed that the mother would be right not to answer
the call. This was presented to Witnesses worldwide as faithful application of
biblical discipline — evidence that the organisation takes sin seriously and
protects congregation holiness.

## Strategy

Do not mention Morris by name at first — the person does not matter, the instruction does. Open by acknowledging that every mainstream Christian tradition has some form of church discipline and that discipline is biblical. Then gently reference the 2016 broadcast: "I am not making this up and I am not quoting an apostate website. This is from JW Broadcasting, the organisation's own monthly programme, a Governing Body member speaking in his official capacity, and it is publicly archived." Describe the scenario in factual terms — not emotionally. A disfellowshipped adult daughter calls her mother; the broadcast affirms the mother should not pick up. Then ask the pickaxe question: "I want to understand how this squares with 1 Timothy 5:8 — 'if anyone does not provide for his own relatives, especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith.' Provision includes being reachable when a grown child is in need. If the mother is told not to answer the phone, what does that instruction do to the biblical obligation Paul gave Timothy?" Then Luke 15 — the shepherd leaves the 99 for the 1. The shepherd does not refuse the call when the 1 calls home. Close by connecting it to the fruit test: this is not a Watchtower caricature or a misunderstood policy — this is the policy, explicitly taught by Governing Body members on the organisation's own broadcast. If the fruit test (Matthew 7:16) is going to be applied to any tradition honestly, this branch must be counted in the harvest. Do not press for a reaction. Plant and leave.

## Key Insight

The 2016 broadcast removes the argument that family shunning is a caricature. The policy is explicitly affirmed by Governing Body members on the organisation's own video platform, using an ordinary family scenario — a daughter calling her mother. 1 Timothy 5:8 condemns the inverse of that instruction, and Luke 15 inverts the same logic again: the father of the prodigal is described as waiting for the son and running to him. A policy that refuses the phone call is not scripturally defensible on the Bible's own terms.

## JW Responses & Counters

### Response 1

**JW says:** "That broadcast is taken out of context — Brother Morris was teaching us to guard our spirituality."

**Counter:** I agree the broadcast is often taken out of context on apostate websites and I want to be fair to it. Here is the context as it actually ran: a hypothetical adult daughter, disfellowshipped, calls her mother. The question is whether the mother should answer. The broadcast affirms that the mother should not. That context does not soften the instruction — it clarifies it. And the clarification is the problem: the instruction is not about sacramental matters or joint worship, it is about an ordinary family phone call. Guarding spirituality is a good thing — but the Bible has examples of how to do it (Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5) and none of them require refusing a child's phone call.

### Response 2

**JW says:** "1 Corinthians 5:11 says 'do not even eat with such a one.' Paul is clear."

**Counter:** Paul's instruction in 1 Corinthians 5 is specifically about unrepentant immorality in the congregation context — sharing the Lord's Supper with someone who is flaunting sexual sin and calling themselves a brother. The "do not even eat" refers to communal fellowship meals, not family meals. And critically, Paul in the very next chapter distinguishes between judging those *inside* the church and those *outside* — a disfellowshipped person is outside. The parallel in 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 then explicitly adds "do not regard him as an enemy but warn him as a brother." That verse alone defeats a shunning policy that refuses a phone call — the instruction is warn him, not ignore him.

### Response 3

**JW says:** "Parents have a duty to protect the congregation from influence."

**Counter:** Protecting the congregation is a serious duty, and I will not minimise it. But 1 Timothy 5:8 places an even higher duty on the same parent — the duty to provide for their own household. Paul uses strong language: "he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." That is not a small charge. If a parent's policy toward an adult child means refusing to answer the phone when that child is in distress, Paul's charge applies. You cannot protect the congregation by abandoning the very person Paul tells you to provide for.

### Response 4

**JW says:** "You are reading 1 Timothy 5:8 out of context — it is about financial provision for widows."

**Counter:** The immediate context is widows, yes, but the principle Paul states is broader: "if anyone does not provide for his own relatives, and especially members of his household, he has denied the faith." The Greek word for "provide" (*pronoeo*) carries a broader sense than cash transfer — it means to think-ahead-for, to look out for. Being reachable is part of looking out for. More importantly, the argument from the 2016 broadcast does not rest on 1 Timothy 5:8 alone. Luke 15, the shepherd parables, the father of the prodigal — the whole weight of Jesus's own teaching on family and restoration points the opposite direction from "do not answer the phone."

### Response 5

**JW says:** "You are not a Witness — you are judging what you do not understand from inside."

**Counter:** That is a fair caution and I take it seriously. I am not judging your motives or your heart. I am asking about a specific instruction given on a specific Governing Body broadcast that was circulated to Kingdom Halls around the world. The question is not whether I understand the inside — it is whether the Bible agrees with the instruction. And the test should not be whether apostates quote it but whether 1 Timothy 5:8, Luke 15, and 1 Corinthians 13:7 ("love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things") agree with an instruction to not answer an adult child's phone call. I am asking you to apply the test yourself.

### Response 6

**JW says:** "The Governing Body has adjusted its position since then — they do not require that anymore."

**Counter:** If that is true, I welcome it — every correction toward Luke 15 is a correction in the right direction. But here is the question the correction raises: who was right and who was wrong in 2016? If the 2016 instruction was wrong, then the faithful-and-discreet-slave was teaching error on a broadcast to millions of Witnesses. If the 2016 instruction was right, then the current position (if softer) is now teaching error. Either way, one of the two positions was wrong, which means the Governing Body's instruction cannot be the unfailing guide the Watchtower says it is. The fruit test (Matthew 7:16) applies to both the old instruction and the new instruction, and to the authority structure that produced both.

### Response 7

**JW says:** "Our family discipline works — it brings sinners to repentance."

**Counter:** Some who are disfellowshipped do return, and I am glad for that. But the test Jesus gave in Luke 15 is not whether discipline sometimes produces returns — it is whether the shepherd's disposition matches the father of the prodigal. The father in Luke 15 did not stop answering the phone. He watched the road. He ran. He embraced before the son had finished his repentance speech. The biblical posture of the waiting parent is the test, and the broadcast instruction contradicts that posture. Whatever the policy achieves in terms of return rates does not make the posture biblical.

### Response 8

**JW says:** "I have personally been shunned by family and it brought me back. The policy saved me."

**Counter:** That is a serious witness and I do not want to dismiss your experience. Some people do describe the shock of shunning as a wake up call, and I will not argue with what you experienced personally. What I will ask is whether an outcome for some justifies the instruction for all. For every one who returned, there are others whose families have been permanently fractured — and the 2016 broadcast applies to both. The biblical question is not whether discipline can produce returns. It is whether the specific instruction — do not answer the phone — is the disposition of Luke 15, 1 Corinthians 13, or 1 Timothy 5:8. The testimony of those the policy helps does not settle the question of whether the policy itself is biblical.

## What to Avoid

Do not mock Anthony Morris personally — he has since been removed from the Governing Body on unrelated grounds and bringing that up is ad hominem and cheap. Do not use emotionally loaded testimony from disfellowshipped survivors to shock the Witness at the door. Do not pretend Protestant churches have been perfect on church discipline — some have been too lax, others too harsh. Keep the argument on the broadcast and the verses. Do not press for an immediate rejection of the policy — this kind of conversation needs weeks of settling inside the Witness. Never imply the Witness at the door approves of the specific instruction — they may not have seen the broadcast, and presuming approval is unjust.

## Homework

Watch the May 2016 JW Broadcasting monthly programme segment yourself from the publicly archived broadcast, so you can describe the scenario accurately and in factual terms. Read the Watchtower of April 15, 2012 (pp. 11-12) and January 15, 2013 (pp. 15-16) to understand the organisation's stated reasoning. Then read 1 Timothy 5:8 together with the verses before it about widows, and the whole of Luke 15 until you can retell the father running to his son from memory. Practise the doorstep question aloud calmly; this touches families, and the Witness at the door may be living it. Prepare for "1 Corinthians 5:11 says do not even eat with such a one": read 1 Corinthians 5 in context so you can show it concerns unrepentant immorality within the congregation.

## Next Moves

- [Shunning — The 1947 Reversal](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/shunning-1947.md)
- [No Biblical Warrant for Family Shunning](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/shunning-family-no-biblical-warrant.md)
- [Admonish Him as a Brother — The Verse That Undoes Shunning](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/shunning-admonish-as-brother.md)
- [The Governing Body — Eleven Men in New York](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/governing-body.md)
- [Organisation Above Scripture — When the Green Book Becomes Black](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/organisation-vs-bible-authority.md)
- [The Fruit Test Must Examine the Whole Harvest](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/fruit-test-whole-harvest.md)